


Incunabula

by jibrailis



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-15
Updated: 2010-12-15
Packaged: 2017-10-13 22:44:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/142544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jibrailis/pseuds/jibrailis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ariadne and Mal share a slow dance and a cigarette.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Incunabula

**Author's Note:**

> Written for cobweb_diamond's [prompt on the kink meme.](http://community.livejournal.com/inception_kink/13659.html?thread=30210651#t30210651)

At the party, in the dim light, is how she sees her best.

Ariadne's had half of the men in the room and most of the women as well. Ariadne has small wrists and even daintier ankles that she loves to hook over the shoulders of whoever is fucking her into the mattress. Ariadne has a black skirt and a blouse that's open to bare her lace camisole, and Ariadne is the best architect the firm can boast.

Ariadne made this room.

She didn't, however, make Mal.

 

* * *

 

 _"Salut,"_ Mal says, and her voice is like the low crackle of a Victrola as it warms up. She holds a long, thin cigarette against her lips as she watches the ocean turn restlessly on the beach. She is dressed in stripes of black and grey, but the cravat at her neck is as red as the rouge on her lips. She doesn't often come to these parties, but she came today and for that Ariadne is glad.

 _"Bon soir. Comment ça va?"_ Ariadne replies, the last remnants of her high school French. Her voice holds clear, however, clear and girlish, which is what draws the others to her, what creates the spectacle which is then destroyed.

But Mal cannot be destroyed. Mal is ferociously beautiful in her menswear, like Athena, and the ashes of her cigarette fall gently to the floor, an endowment.

 

* * *

 

The music is not to Ariadne's taste, but she extends her hand anyway.

"We haven't done this in a long time," she says, looking at Mal from behind her neatly coiled lashes.

"We haven't done this ever, my darling," Mal says, and takes her hand.

 

* * *

 

The porch is five steps wide, three steps long, but Ariadne designed it that way so that she can hold onto Mal as closely as possible, so that she can align their bodies together and feel the warm press of Mal's breast against her own. Ariadne's breath is as even as the lines on her design grids, but her heartbeat is another matter entirely, and she knows that Mal can keep fickle time by it. Mal's mouth crooks upwards in a fluid stroke, and she says Ariadne's name, curls it on the smoke of her tongue.

Ariadne wants to breathe that smoke in; breathe in all of her.

But she will settle for this, for now, the gait of Mal's legs moving with her own, the sure touch of Mal's hand at the small of Ariadne's back. Mal's fingers touch her meaningfully and slide downwards, resting above the space where Ariadne's dimples would be. She can feel Mal's fingers explore the intimate indentation. Ariadne wants to arch against Mal shamelessly, and after a while she does. She grinds against Mal's silk and linen, against the mysteries of Mal's smile.

She feels like the pendulum of a clock, inexorably swung forward, struck.

Mal's hands catch her.

 

* * *

 

"Are you married?" Ariadne asks her.

"Let me count the ways," Mal says, guiding her with the music. She smells like lilies, like snow. "We could speak of marriage until our tongues grow dusty with travel and we have nothing left to say." She dips Ariadne low and holds her there, thoughtful, seemingly uncaring about the dancers inside the ballroom or the sweep of Ariadne's bangs over her solemn face. "Or we could do this," Mal suggests, and kisses her on the mouth.

 

* * *

 

They kiss for a long time.

A very long time.

 

* * *

 

Then Ariadne pushes Mal into the shadows and she snaps open the buttons of Mal's trousers. She slides her hand in, question and answer. Mal laughs softly and tilts her head back, staring up at the stars as Ariadne works into her. Mal is soft and tender and more than a little mad, and Ariadne wants to make her break.

She does, almost, when Mal stops looking at the stars and starts looking at her instead, a heavy shipwreck of a gaze. Then Mal arches back against Ariadne's fingers, and her knuckles grow white where they clutch the marble banister. "Oh god," she says, closing her eyes. "You are truly talented."

"Shall I use my tongue?" Ariadne asks, and Mal's breath breaks as she nods. So Ariadne falls to her knees like a pilgrim at the altar, and she tugs down the remainder of Mal's trousers, unfurls them entirely as she stares at the swan muscles of Mal's thighs. Then she leans forward to press her tongue against Mal, to taste Mal's wetness, to lick Mal clean and empty. To take every bit of her in and leave nothing behind.

Ariadne drinks Mal in smoothly.

But maybe this is where it is wrong. Maybe Ariadne was meant to choke.

 

* * *

 

"I think," Ariadne murmurs, "that I am dead."

"What gives you that impression?" Mal asks, reaching for a fresh cigarette. She hands one to Ariadne and she lights Ariadne's with her own, leaning so close that Ariadne can see the ring of hazel around the brown of her eyes.

"We do this over and over again," Ariadne says.

"Do we?"

"I think we do," Ariadne says. "I think I was here yesterday and the day before that, except there is no yesterday or the day before that. Every time the music begins anew, so do I."

"Perhaps it is a dream then," Mal suggests, and she sounds amused now, having latched onto a riddle. "You are with Dom and Arthur, and they are waiting for you to wake up."

But Ariadne remembers blood and steel and Arthur's voice cracking like the fork in a road. She shakes her head. "I died," she says. "I am certain that I did."

"Ah," Mal replies. "Well, it happens sometimes."

 

* * *

 

Ariadne looks out at the sea, at the shadows.

"Does it get very lonely here?" she finally asks.

"Not anymore," Mal says, and the light of her, the fire and the want, burns the rest of it to pieces. Ariadne watches it fall away. Then she turns to Mal, who is waiting, and leads her in another dance.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] Incunabula](https://archiveofourown.org/works/526732) by [Chestnut_filly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chestnut_filly/pseuds/Chestnut_filly)




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